The Hunt

CHAPTER 23

Nick remembered the first time he got drunk. Not simple intoxication. Mind-numbing, porcelain-god-bowing, ground-worshipping drunk.

He would gladly trade the pain in his head now for a three-day hangover.

A moan escaped his parched lips, the faint sound making his headache worse. His eyelids felt crusted with sand and shut tight by weights. Just the thought of moving intensified the pain.

But he was alive. That, he knew. Surely there wasn’t pain when you were dead? Unless hell existed and he’d done something bad enough to merit eternal damnation. The way he felt now, he might prefer hell.

Cold seeped through the pain in his head. He shivered, then moaned from the pain of moving. Though deeply chilled, he wasn’t outside. He was lying on his side, something harder than the ground beneath him. A wood floor. The smells. Mold. Urine. Dead animals. The musty stench of layer upon layer of damp dirt.

He tried to move his arm. His hands were numb, but not from the cold. They were bound behind him. He breathed deeply, riding the tide of pain as he exhaled. His breath came right back at him; his face was up against a wall.

What had happened? He’d been driving… where? That’s right, to the small A-frame on the far southern boundary of Judge Parker’s vast land holdings.

He hadn’t seen anything suspicious and was about to head home. A complete waste of time, and he remembered thinking he was glad he hadn’t bothered Quinn. He’d turned, seen a pair of boots, and thought it odd that they sat by the side door of an unused cabin.

He’d reached for his gun, but someone hit him from behind. He hadn’t heard a thing, only felt a sharp pain… then nothing.

Until now.

Had his attacker been sitting in the dark in Parker’s cabin the entire time Nick had been walking the perimeter? Why? Had someone broken in? Were people using it illegally? Or did Parker know them?

Was his far-reaching theory true about the Butcher using it as home base?

Nick knew with certainty that he wasn’t in Parker’s cabin. The foul odors and deep cold suggested a makeshift cabin or small shack.

Deep cold. Miranda hated the cold because of what the Butcher had done. Now, Nick was in the same position. Bound, on a cold wood floor.

Could Richard Parker be the Butcher?

Nick couldn’t imagine the judge he’d known his entire adult life torturing women. But he partly fit the profile, didn’t he? Maybe a little older. And he was married and certainly not a loner. But Parker was physically fit and had been raised hunting and fishing in southwest Montana. Of course, the most damning evidence was that Nick had been attacked at Parker’s cabin.

FBI profiles could be wrong. The thought that Parker could be the Butcher sickened Nick. He remembered all the times he’d gone to the judge for help getting additional resources. The strings Parker had pulled to get the county to allocate more resources for searches that always ended with bad news. Could Parker have been laughing from the sidelines, knowing how wrong the police were in their analysis? Did he get some sort of sick pleasure watching Miranda search for women he held captive?

There was no concrete proof the Butcher was Parker. The killer could have staked out the cabin, seen that it was rarely used, and stayed there without incident. Or Parker could have rented it or loaned it to a friend.

Shit. He should have left the damn message on Quinn’s voice mail. They could have surveilled Parker, put an undercover team on the house, dug deeper into Parker’s past.

He’d spent so much time second-guessing himself this week that he hadn’t listened to his instincts. Now he was paying the price.

A slight noise, a rustling, made him jump. Rodents? A bear?

No. The sound hadn’t come from outside.

He wasn’t alone.

Nick didn’t know how he knew it, but all at once he sensed someone else breathing the same air he was. Then he heard it. A faint whisper.

The pounding beneath his skull was so loud it took him a minute to understand the words.

“Who’s there? Who’s there?”

He tried to speak, but it came out a moan.

“Who’s there?” Whispered. Hoarse. Female.

He licked his dry lips. “Sheriff.” The effort to speak hurt.

“Who?”

Dammit, he could barely think, let alone talk.

He forced himself to swallow. “Sheriff. Thomas.” He spoke each word carefully.

“Sheriff?”

Nick realized then that the person wasn’t whispering. The voice was hoarse. Like when his brother Steve had laryngitis back in high school.

Or a throat raw from repeated screaming.

“Ashley?” Even speaking single words pained him, but he had to get over it. He was certain he had a concussion. And there was something wrong with his legs. Maybe they were bound as well, but he couldn’t feel anything below his waist. Nick’s entire body was cold and numb.

But he was alive. He planned on staying alive. And keeping Ashley van Auden alive, too. How he would do this was another story. He didn’t know where he was, what time it was, or how the hell to get out of here.

“Yes.” Her voice squeaked out, then ended in a sob. She was so close that if he wasn’t bound he could reach out and touch her. “He’s going to kill us. He’s going to kill us. It’s him. The Butcher. He’s going to kill us like all those others-”

“Shhh.”

Ashley repeated her mantra over and over, making Nick’s head throb. He tried to shush her, but couldn’t, so he tried to ignore her. That failed, too.

“Ashley. Ashley.” He repeated her name until she finally stopped sobbing.

She whimpered. “What?”

“We need to plan. Think.” Think? Hell, he could barely calculate two plus two.

“I don’t want to die,” she sobbed.

Neither did he. “At some point he’ll release you.”

“And then he’ll kill me! I know what he did to Rebecca Douglas. H-h-he slit her throat. He k-k-killed her!”

“Ashley. Stop.” Nausea rose in his throat and his mind swam, dizzy. He took in as big a breath as he could; eased it out. In. Out. He couldn’t lose consciousness again. It was too dangerous for both of them.

“Sheriff?”

From the concern in her whisper, he must have dozed off or passed out for a minute. “I’m here.”

“You didn’t answer me.”

“Sorry.” He exhaled. “Do you know where you are?”

“No. I’m blindfolded. I can’t see anything.”

“Did you see anyone when you were kidnapped?”

“No,” she sobbed. “No one. Ohmygod, Jo! She’s not here, she hasn’t answered me. She’s dead, isn’t she? She’s dead.” Ashley started sobbing hysterically. It took Nick several minutes to calm her down. It wouldn’t do any good for Ashley to know her friend was in a coma, so he lied.

“JoBeth is going to be fine. She’s in the hospital, but she’s going to be fine.”

“Thank God, thank God.”

Did the Butcher think Nick knew his identity? He must have felt threatened somehow to have attacked him at the cabin.

If that was the case, there was no way the Butcher would give Nick a chance to escape. Unless he found a way out, he was as good as dead.

“No matter what, when you get out of here, run. Don’t do the expected. Try to cover your tracks. Avoid screaming or even breathing too loud. Stay in the trees. If it’s night and you can’t go on, bury yourself under leaves and hide. But as much as you can, run.” He pictured a map of the places the Butcher chased the women. Everything was south of the interstate, west of Gallatin Gateway. “Head northeast as much as possible. Eventually, in a day, maybe two or three, you’ll hit the main road.”

“How do you know?”

“I know his hunting ground.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll stay with you if I can.”

She didn’t say anything. Maybe she knew how injured he was. Or maybe she thought he wouldn’t be released.

Several moments passed, and Nick thought Ashley had gone to sleep. “He hurt me.”

Her voice was faint. Pleading. Almost childlike.

“I know, honey. I’m sorry.” He was so sorry. Her abduction was partly his failure. He hadn’t been able to protect the women in his town from the madman who stalked them.

That hurt as much as the pain in his head.

Lying here, on the cold, hard floor, Nick knew they were in a dire situation. The Butcher would be back before anyone could find them. No matter how many people were out searching, they’d never be able to cover enough ground.

He had to think, come up with a plan to save Ashley and himself.

But he feared it was already too late.